The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) in the UK: Resources to accelerate physical sciences research

The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) is a transformative nationally funded initiative in the UK under the wider UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) Programme, aimed at accelerating research in the physical sciences by providing resources to connect and enhance existing data systems. We will present the aims of the PSDI initiative, a brief back-ground to our work and an overview of the resources that are now available to the community through PSDI. Research data needs are growing rapidly, making collaboration around data essential. Data is not just an output but a key driver of further discovery. From simple annotations to complex simulations, contextualised data flows are integral to physical sciences research, but are hindered by issues in data discovery, access, integration, processing, curation and publication. Physical sciences generally trails behind other domains in data management and needs a socio-technical infrastructure that seamlessly connects data, computation, and experiments. Physical science research infrastructures, from laboratories to large facilities, frequently operate as isolated data ecosystems with varying data management levels. In contrast, many other domains have data-centric infrastructures for data collection and reuse, acting as community hubs and drivers of new methods and discoveries. There is a clear physical sciences need for an additional linking infrastructure layer to enable researchers to acquire, analyse and share their data, in addition to searching, using and aggregating a wide range of existing resources, whilst ensuring that datasets can remain dedicated to specific applications. PSDI is creating a data infrastructure that connects existing experimental and computational facilities within Physical Sciences and beyond to enhance research efficiency. PSDI looks to improve data handling across the research data lifecycle through the creation of tools and services that can be deployed within the researcher's workflow. The work not only focuses on the technology and services required, but also has strands relating to skills & training, best practices and standardization activities. Following an initial pilot [1] and development phase, focusing on the principles of connecting existing infrastructures, best use of data, best use of people and best use of technology, PSDI has recently launched an initial set of resources for the physical sciences community in the form of services, software tools, data sources and guidance. PSDI enables researchers to access and combine reference quality data from both commercial and open sources; share data, software and models with the community, make use of technologies such as AI to explore data; and learn how to make their research open and FAIR. This presentation will cover exemplars of these services in domain areas such as Catalysis, NMR crystallography and molecular simulations, as well as cross-disciplinary applications, demonstrating how PSDI resources will enable scientists to transform their data-centric workflows. 1. N J Knight, J Bicarregui, B Montanari, S J Coles, J G Frey, B Matthews, & V Bunakov. (2023). Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure Phase 1 Pilot Report. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7684860